shalt go before the face of the Lord, to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation unto his people, by the remission of their sins, through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the day-spring from on high hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,-to guide our feet into the way of peace." From infancy, this wondrous child displayed the utmost magnanimity. This fact, according to the manner of the Scriptures, is strikingly set forth by a single expression: "The child grew and waxed strong in spirit." His greatness, indeed, had been expressly foretold :- "He shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb. And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God; and he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord."-All this betokens the utmost moral greatness.

As the period of John's public labours was very brief, that period was necessarily attended with but few incidents; those incidents, however, were of such a nature as strikingly to illustrate his marvellous magnanimity. As changes of climate try the constitution, so few men have sufficient moral greatness to withstand the prostrating influence of royal favour. Before the sunshine of a court they melt away. The maintenance of robust health, under the operation of influences so debilitating, is, therefore, the most satisfactory proof of extraordinary magnanimity. This it is which reflects such lustre on the names of Elijah, Daniel, and other Old Testament worthies. No human spirit ever sustained less injury than John from regal smiles, while, like a pillar of marble, he remained erect and unmoved amid the prostrate and fawning multitudes.

When John was called to preach to the royal household, "the trumpet gave a certain sound." His words were as swords and spears to the hearts of his audience; but none did they pierce so deeply as Herod himself. He stormed at once the stronghold of the ruler's passions. He not only reproved the king for taking his brother Philip's wife, but "for all the evils which Herod had done.' 'There was no forbearance, no connivance, no winking at sin. John knew the price of his fidelity; but he shrunk not from duty; although for that fidelity he was first imprisoned, then beheaded! There is upon record, I think, no instance of moral greatness much superior to that of John; certainly none ever, at least, presented such an aspect of awful severity and exalted sanctity. The experiment of its power upon a hardened and most profligate magistrate, was singularly instructive. Herodias dreaded the effects of John's remonstrances upon the conscience of Herod, and as a means of preventing the separation which might probably ensue, she plotted John's destruction. She "would have killed him, but she could not, for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just man, and a holy, and observed him." What an acknowledgment ! Could a higher tribute be yielded to moral worth ?-Behold the decision and elevation which eminent piety imparts to Christian character!

The glorious company of THE APOSTLES are next presented to our notice, as illustrious examples of moral greatness. This noble attribute, like a monument upon a mountain, is seen to most advantage when least encumbered with adventitious circumstances. These men, without fortune, without rank, without patronage, without a single quality by which the world is accustomed to set store-occupied a situation in Jerusalem, at the outset of their enterprise, which served to try them to the uttermost. They sustained the fiery ordeal with honour. The narrative of their actions needs only

to be read in order to produce the strongest conviction of their surpassing moral greatness. Their enemies beheld it and wondered; they were unable to account for the sublime phenomena of their courage. Those enemies "marvelled at their boldness; and took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus." How magnanimous was their answer to those who commanded them to speak no more in his name! "Whether it be right, in the sight of God, to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye; for we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard." But, passing by a multitude of heroic spirits referred to in the New Testament, let us for a little fix our thoughts upon Saul of Tarsus, whose name is but another for magnanimity, and whose moral greatness was second only to that of his Almighty Master. To estimate aright the character of this extraordinary man, it is necessary to weigh well his position, and to consider the nature of the work to which his life was consecrated. That position and that work were both entirely novel; neither had previously existed. They were such as tended to test moral greatness to the uttermost, and such as supplied a boundless field for its exhibition. The labours of Paul were wholly different from those of all the Jewish worthies, with the single and comparatively insignificant exception of Jonah. Nothing of the missionary character attached to Enoch, Noah, Job, Abrahaın, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Samuel, and the other prophets. The duties of these righteous men were varied, and, in some cases, difficult; but where they extended beyond personal piety, they were local in their sphere, and limited in their design. But the sphere of Paul's operations was the globe; and with respect to their design, the words of Jesus Christ to Ananias, concerning his election and appointment to the Gentile apostleship, fully unfold it. "He is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the

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Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel; for I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake." This awful intimation relative to suffering, was fully realized. But the apostolic office was to be an affair of doing, as well as of suffering-and the doing was to be the cause of the suffering. The Messiah's words to Paul, set forth in the most emphatic manner the immense magnitude of the active labour marked out for him to perform. While the persecutor was laid prostrate, blinded, and confounded by the glory of the vision, on his way to Damascus, the Saviour thus replied to his trembling inquiry, “Who art thou?" "I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness, both of those things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee; delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me."

From a man so called, and from an enterprise announced with so much dignified solemnity, it was proper to anticipate results of the most remarkable character; and, on examining the history of his subsequent career, we find the events corresponding with the prediction. "Here we have a man of liberal attainments, and in other points of sound judgment, who had addicted his life to the service of the gospel. We see him in the prosecution of his purpose, travelling from country to country, enduring every species of hardship, encountering every extremity of danger, and assaulted by the populace, punished by the magistrates, scourged, beat, stoned, left for dead; expecting, wherever he came, a renewal of the same treatment, and the same

dangers, yet, when driven from one city, preaching in the next; spending his whole time in the employment, sacrificing to it his pleasure, his ease, his safety; persisting in this course to old age, unaltered by the experience of perverseness, ingratitude, prejudice, desertion; unsubdued by anxiety, want, labour, persecutions; unwearied by long confinement, undismayed by the prospect of death."*

These are some of the personal facts of the Apostle's history which may be applied in a twofold manner,— first, either to demonstrate the Credibility of the Gospel Record; or, secondly, to illustrate the Moral Greatness of the principal propagator of the "Glad Tidings" among heathen nations. The first of these points alone concerned Paley, who thus proceeds :— "The question is, Whether falsehood was ever attested by evidence like this? Falsehoods, we know, have found their way into reports, into tradition, into books; but is an example to be met with, of a man voluntarily undertaking a life of want and pain, of incessant fatigue, of continual peril; submitting to the loss of home and country, to stripes and starving, to tedious imprisonment and the expectation of a violent death, for the sake of carrying about a story of what was false, and of what, if false, he must have known to be so ?" To all this the answer is, clearly, No! If allegations thus sustained be false, what is the evidence, and where is it to be found, that is necessary to the support of truth? But this not only suffices to demonstrate that Paul's message was true; it likewise establishes beyond contradiction that his character was good and great,-good beyond degree, and great beyond all appreciation. Simple acquittal was enough for Paley's object, but mine requires more. proach the bar of enlightened opinion, not to ask a

* Paley's Horæ Paulinæ.

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